Volunteers drop in on dropouts

Photos by Todd Yates/Caller-Times
Gloria Hicks (from left), Linda Villarreal, Skip Noe, Maria Elena Zavala and Sonia Perez look over student information Saturday before heading out to knock on doors of Corpus Christi Independent School District students who recently dropped out. Volunteers talked 14 students back into class.

CORPUS CHRISTI - Volunteers almost 450 strong hoped to convince high school dropouts to reconsider and enroll for school during a Keeping Every Youth in School community walk Saturday.

"Like we need fresh air, every human being needs love," said the Most Rev. Bishop Edmond Carmody during a kickoff rally at Miller High School. "A lot of young people drop out because they feel like nobody loves them."

Volunteers then took to neighborhoods to knock on doors and to talk with former students.

KEYS is modeled after a program in Houston that has proven to be a successful and inexpensive way to keep students in school. The program is designed to increase awareness about the importance of completing high school, to identify resources to address the dropout problem and to increase graduation rates in the community.

"If we bring even one student back to school, our efforts will be worth it," said Delia McLerran, principal of Miller High School.

Volunteer Rachael Gogis, a teacher at Wynn Seale Academy of Fine Arts, said the effort was well worth it. Her team had success during its first visit, at the home of Joe McNabb, an 18-year-old Miller High School senior who needs a couple of credits to graduate.

McNabb said he quit school to help take care of his family. His mother has been ill, and the family is struggling financially, so he works at a refinery in Victoria from Monday to Thursday.

"They said they could help me and could work around my work schedule," McNabb said of the volunteer team. "Now I can go to school on Fridays at Coles."

McNabb didn't know about the option to attend Coles High School, an alternative school for students who have not been successful at traditional high schools, before Saturday.

"By December, I can graduate," McNabb said, grinning. "I'm going to walk the stage in the spring."

McNabb plans to continue working and go to college to earn a degree in electronics technology. Gogis plans to attend McNabb's high school graduation.

"It's the ripple effect, like when you drop a pebble in the water and it makes a little ripple," Gogis said. "I just pray that I was a little pebble and made a difference today."

Some team members said they felt they made a difference even if a student was not home.

Tracie Rodriguez, walk team leader and principal at Collegiate High School, said her group talked with extended relatives, such as aunts and grandmothers, who appreciated the visit.

"They seemed to be just as eager to get them back in school as we were," Rodriguez said.

Guy Nickleson, CEO for the LEAD First organization, said showing love for others is what this walk is all about.

"These kids can only go so far without education," Nickleson said. "We just can't walk away from this."

Sylvia Tryon Oliver, president of the Corpus Christi Black Chamber of Commerce, helped organize the event. She said each high school will have a registrar and counselors on hand with resources available to make sure the students' needs are met when they return.

"(The staff) will help the students get caught up and plugged in," Oliver said.

Gilbert Ymbert, truancy officer for Corpus Christi Independent School District, was happy to have help Saturday. His full-time job of making sure kids stay in school keeps him busy. He said he visits about 500 to 600 homes per year.